


6 Minutes

by Somedrunkpirate



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Implied Character Death, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 11:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedrunkpirate/pseuds/Somedrunkpirate
Summary: There is no enemy to disarm; Eames killed them all. But they had done their damage before he could get away. And Arthur, with his unerring sense of impending danger and the strength of action to protect all that is in reach of him, is not here.





	6 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IAmANonnieMouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmANonnieMouse/gifts).



 

There are four dead bodies decorating the garden and the soon-to-be fifth is moaning in rhythm with Eames’ unsteady steps towards him. The thug has almost reached the rose-covered bushes with his desperate crawling, hissing in pain with every inch he drags himself away from his impending trip to the other side.

Eames respects his efforts, even though he’s crawling towards a fence so high he wouldn’t have made it even without the two bullets in his leg.

Eames sighs and shoots, burying his last bullet in the poor guy’s brain. He drops the gun, and carefully retracts the hand he had wrapped around his waist in order to walk. His whole shirtsleeve is drenched in blood, and Eames feels the slick wetness of it leaking down from the wound in his side into the leg of his pants. Eames has been shot before, but this is a new, more dire, situation.

With the last scraps of his adrenaline, he pushes himself into the safehouse, which is not much more than a barn with a big lock on it and some first-aid storage. He locates his phone, a bottle of whiskey, and the emergency kit in his last precious seconds of walking, before collapsing onto the bed with a low grunt of pain. He swallows back his breakfast seconds before it is involuntarily thrown up and out of his stomach. Pain makes him see black spots, and it takes a perseverance he almost doesn’t have to not give into it, close his eyes, and sink into the painless black darkness.

But Eames doesn’t because he still has some pride left. He needs to make sure he has at least fought to live before he deserves the sweet promise of death.

Re-opening his eyes is excruciating, as is rearranging himself upright. With his free hand, he searches blindly for the whiskey. He opens it with a practiced twist and takes a long and deep swig of the stuff, craving the numbing like never before. The burn from the alcohol momentarily distracts him from the flaring pain at his side and Eames sighs happily at the temporary release.

When the distraction fades as the whiskey hits his stomach, he has precisely one second to realise the mistake he made. He folds forwards in reflex, puking the meager contents of his stomach over his shoes. The movement and the coughing tear a new layer of pain into him, one he can’t come back out of, can’t think through.

He drowns in it, and passes out.

Some time later, one that contains both around a day or two and forever, Eames has to make peace with the fact that the situation will get worse, before it will get better, if it will at all.

He has patched himself up as much as he can, but the bullet is still inside him, and Eames can’t bend to clean the hole in his left leg that is starting to turn shiny and red around the edges. There will be pus coming out of it tomorrow. Eames knows he has lost a lot of blood, he should have been in a hospital two days ago, but there is no way to get there.

Eames knows that the chances of him surviving this are lower than low. He thought he had accepted the high probability of an untimely death when he started this career, or when he signed up for the army all those years ago. Or more recently, when he stared down the barrel of a gun for 15 eternal seconds before Arthur kicked the hand away, embedding the bullet meant for Eames’ head in the floor boards.

Eames had thought that experience taught him to expect and accept death at whatever point in the future. But now he realises that even when he was in his last seconds of breathing that day, on his knees and tied up, he still believed that Arthur would prevent it, that Arthur would save him.

What Eames learned was that his trust in Arthur was above and beyond reasonable human capabilities, but Arthur had met them anyway.

This time, however, death is no quick shot in the head.

It’s a darkness creeping into the corners of Eames’ vision. The slow encroachment of death is now so real and comes from within himself, from within his battered body. There is no enemy to disarm; Eames killed them all. But they had done their damage before he could get away. And Arthur, with his unerring sense of impending danger and the strength of action to protect all that is in reach of him, is not here.

Desperation soon floods Eames’ system, a last ditch survival effort that takes control of his brain.

To a human, desperation can turn someone in a ruthless, inexhaustible killer. The fight or flight response chose and went in with a gun and some grenades for good measure. Survival rates are dependent on skill and pure dumb luck. Eames has run out of it.

The second thing desperation does is remove the idea of embarrassment. Shame is a luxury. When you're about to die, pride is not a concept that is viable anymore, so it’s disregarded and buried under the stark realisation that this will be the end of it all, so anything you do now won’t really matter anyway.

It’s that latter consequence of desperation that makes Eames grab his phone, and call Arthur.

Arthur picks up on the first ring. “Eames, where are you? The rest of the team is safe, I’m too. Did you reach your safehouse?”

For a moment only Arthur’s voice washes over him, not the words, taking him a place outside his useless shell of a body. Then he coughs, and all the pain comes rushing back.

“Eames?” Arthur says, alarmed.

“I’m in the safe house,” Eames says before taking a rugged breath, hissing in pain. “But they were too.”

“You’re shot.” It’s not a question. Eames can sense that Arthur knows it’s serious. He can also hear the sounds of Arthur standing up and haphazardly packing.

“I am,” Eames answers the not-question, and then closes his eyes. “Arthur, don’t bother,” he says, and the ruffling on the other side stops immediately.

“I’m coming,” Arthur says, and his voice is ice cold and _steel_. His mind is made up, and Eames can’t say anything to dissuade it.

Except.

“Darling, I won’t make it. I’ll be dead before you get here,” Eames says, and for the first time tears spring from the corner of his eyes.

He doesn’t know if he is mourning himself or the future he will never be able to have now, as unlikely as it was to happen.

“Don’t say that,” Arthur says in a rush. It was supposed to be a command, but it sounds too panicked to be; too broken. Eames’ heart breaks, too. This was supposed to be one-sided, a secret he kept buried because of the impossibility of it.

“I know it, love. I’m sorry,” Eames says, and then prepares himself to say the words. The reason why he called.

Arthur interrupts him before he can start. “I’ll be there in ten minutes, can you make that?”

“You were supposed to be out of the country by now,” Eames says, thrown by the question.

“I had a bad feeling, and apparently I was right. Why didn’t you fucking call me earlier, Eames? No. Don’t answer that. Nine minutes. You’re going to give me nine minutes, and after that you’re going to give me the rest of your fucking life. You’re not going to die on me,” Arthur spits into the phone. The slam of a door and after the sound of a car starting in the background.

Eames smiles; he supposes that dying while being lectured by Arthur does make some poetic sense.

“Darling, I love you, just so you know,” Eames says, too numb to care anymore. He just had to say the words this once, even though it’s unfair and selfish of him. It will be the last selfish action he will ever do, so he thinks it will be forgiven.

“No,” Arthur chokes out.

Eames can hear him grinding his teeth and the desperate pull of his breathing. Somewhere in the soft nothingness, there is a stab of sympathy; a stab of regret.

Arthur cares for him, had cared for him, that’s so painfully clear now. What the both of them did to deserve to have it come to light like this, Eames doesn’t know.

“Eames, six minutes, say it again in six minutes. Please,” Arthur begs from somewhere far away.

Eames is falling, flying.

He’s forgotten how time works, but he repeats the words when he finds control of his mouth again.

“IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou,” he mumbles into the phone, not stopping until he loses the feeling in his hand and the phone drops onto the ground with a clang.

Eames slowly releases his grip on reality, on breathing, on everything, with Arthur sobbing in the background and cold hands cupping his face.

There is a slight pressure on his lips, and then there is nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Blame finals for this angst. 
> 
> Thank you Autumn for the beta and Nonnie for the lovely cheer read <3 
> 
> For Nonnie because she deserves it for Shattered Souls. (Read it, it hurts so good.)


End file.
